Friday, August 12, 2016

Teachers are abandoning Kansas by the boatload.

The number of teachers leaving Kansas or simply quitting the profession has dramatically increased over the last four years.

The annual Licensed Personnel Report was released Tuesday by the Kansas Department of Education. While it was provided to the Board of Education meeting in Topeka Tuesday, the report was buried in board documents and not addressed by either staff or the board.

The report shows that 1,075 teachers left the profession last year, up from 669 four years ago. That's a 61 percent increase.

The number of teachers who left the state doubled in the last four years, from 413 in 2012 school year to 831 in the last school year.

“When you’re under attack almost continually and called lazy and overpaid and incompetent of course you’re going to leave the first chance you get,” says Mark Desetti, the top lobbyist for the Kansas National Education Association (KNEA). “It’s just shocking to me.”

This literally drives me nuts.

The Republicans may think that undermining education in this country is a good idea in the short run, because you know uneducated people are more likely to vote for them, but in the long run it is damaging our ability to make technological advances, utilize problem solving skills, and compete in a global job market.

Suggesting that children are our most important resource is not just a campaign slogan, it is a fact.

Poll: Most Evangelicals Believe We're Living in the End Times11:00AM EDT 9/12/2013 James Fitzgerald

"Are we indeed living in the end times?Are we indeed living in the end times? (Gualberto107/Free Digital Photos)

Join us on our podcast each weekday for an interesting story, well told, from Charisma News. Listen at charismapodcastnetwork.com.

According to its summer 2013 OmniPoll survery, the Barna Group, a well-respected faith and culture research company in Ventura, Calif., found that 41 percent of U.S. adults, 54 percent of Protestants and 77 percent of evangelicals believe the world is now living in the biblical end times.

When asked, “Do you, personally, believe that the world is currently living in the ‘end times’ as described by prophecies in the Bible, or not?” a startling 41 percent of all participants said yes.

The number was even higher for Protestants, with a figure representing just over 1 in 2 Protestant adults. The highest number registered was by evangelicals, with 3 out of 4 evangelical Christians in America believing the world is living in the end times."

Well that explains things. Trump can push those red buttons, because he's just doing God's work for him? I attend church, one of the traditional peace churches, and despite an again congregation that gets smaller nearly every week, we have a lot of hope for the world. Our free ministry folks don't preach end times. Must be awful to think the world is ending, and to look for someone like Liar Don to bring it on.

Don't forget the home school crowd. They think they can go to a christian bookstore, buy a workbook & provide their children better educations than a teacher who has gotten a specialized degree. You know those kids don't have any knowledge of math higher than the 5th grade.

I taught homeschooled kids in a college technical program. One was outstanding (valedictorian) but he did annoy other students with his preaching. The others were terrible- if they had the skills, they didn't have the critical thinking or problem solving to succeed. They needed to be told what to do every step of the way.

Thankfully, I did homeschooling with our daughter (SHE actually chose it) after 6th grade, and then she went to college at the ripe old age of 15, ending up being a Valedictorian and got a dual AA/AS degree. Then went on to get her BA and MBA and is a very well-rounded person.No religious indoctrination in our home, but she got to study pretty much every mjor religion on her own.

I am not involved with education dept today. But if I were? I would stop vouchers. The Public School System is it. All money stays there. A strong PTA. Serious Background checks, Great pay and benefits. NO tax dollars going to private schools k-12. Simple. Community pride and involvement.

As a human being, I mourn the ravaging of our educational system and the destruction that it will cause to our future.

As the qualified and experienced teachers leave classrooms all over our country, they will be replaced by more and more unqualified, inexperienced, untrained people who will further decimate the public school system.

And their economies will go into the shitter following the schools. In my area folks move here for the schools. They are very good, staffed with excellent teachers and able administrators who take their jobs very seriously. A house sells fast here, no matter what the economy and the bigger it is the faster it sells too! If the schools were not so good, there would be a lot fewer folks living here, less folks shopping, buying this for their homes and yards and families etc. The more Kansas bleeds teachers, the more it will go into the shitter economics wise. And deservedly so. You get what you vote for and they voted for their Brownback governor TWICE. I have NO sympathy, none at all.

I work with educators in a very blue state where education is valued but even here teachers are under tons of pressure. A year or two of less than stellar test scores and a whole new curriculum is brought in. In one local town, teachers are doing their third "new math" in 5 years.

How about students and parents bear some responsibility for education?

@4:56 Oh i get it, Fuck those that cant do private school it wont effect me that others quality of education is lower then mine. It is short sited idiots like you that are part of the problem. Ive got mine Fuck everybody else, you self important piece of shit.

Anonymous 4:56 AM wrote: If you're sending your kids to private schools, what do you care about public schools?

Please note that 4:56 is attributing an attitude to people who send their kids to private schools, with no suggestion that the poster sends his/her own kids to private schools.

The poster understand[s] that others have beliefs, desires, intentions, and perspectives that are different from one's own and is describing (his/her perception of) the beliefs, etc, of a certain group. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind

Anonymous 6:23 AM wrote: @4:56 Oh i get it, Fuck those that cant do private school it wont effect me that others quality of education is lower then mine. It is short sited idiots like you that are part of the problem. Ive got mine Fuck everybody else, you self important piece of shit.

To continue the quote from Wikipedia, Deficits can occur in people with autism spectrum disorders, schizophrenia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, as well as alcoholics who have suffered brain damage due to alcohol's neurotoxicity.

6:23 provides an example of such a deficit, making it clear that s/he believes 4:56 actually holds the beliefs described, using phrases like, "short sited[sic] idiots like you" and "you self important piece of shit."

About 90% of all American students K-12 are enrolled in public schools and the majority of parents are satisfied with the schools. I see this in rural Arkansas: school spirit in the community is a big deal. Notice that Trump hasn't said anything about vouchers, etc.

The Republican hierarchy has long been selling something their own buyers didn't want. Trump was the only candidate who rejected the shibbeloths of the Republicans and reached out to what their base consitutency is really concerned about. And now the leaderships is shocked. . . shocked, I tell you. . . to learn that their base has been only tolerating their high-flown intellectualism (which allowed a respectable cover for their racism) and instead relates to someone who "tells it like it is" (including turning racism from covert to overt).

So we have a % that say "why should I pay for public education, I don't have a kid in school". They don't get the big picture. Those are mostly Republicans.

The Republican leadership, like Trump, "loves the uneducated". That is their base. That is why they've been undermining education for decades.

They also want to get their hands on two pots of tax payer money previously out of reach: education and social security.

They couldn't get the education tax money with vouchers so they went with charters and then No Child Left Behind allowed them to siphon money through the back door selling tutorials, tests, grading tests, etc. And when public schools finally "fail" according to NCLB (which is what it is designed to "prove") they'll be able to get the rest of the money by privatizing schools.

Now they are back to attacking Social Security. Wall St. is salivating to get that money. Just because one or two attempts to privatize social security have failed doesn't mean they won't keep trying until they get that money too.

We ALL have to work at the ground level to get out the vote in November AND off year elections. That is how these assholes got in and ran roughshod over everyone else.My immigrant ancestors brought education with them and produced several devoted and inspired educators. They broke prairie sod and lived in sod houses. They sacrificed crops and animal profits to send their offspring on to higher learning. What this means to us today is that determination to propel education and attract and retain teachers must be a No. 1 priority. Or we are doomed to an intellect that supports the Trumps of this country.

When a kid is part of a winning team, gets a perfect score on the SATs, performs a solo in the band and choir concert, wins a medal for art, or gets a scholarship, that doesn't happen because of lazy, overpaid, and incompetent teachers. Years later graduates don't send notes to their former public school teachers thanking them for being worthless. But where's the story in that? Better when you can roll out a bunch of dismal stats to make the case that our schools are failing, or if you can run a salacious article about a bad teacher. Better still if you can promote the achievement of a homeschool or private school kid as proof those programs succeed.

The conversations about public education in the U.S. have never been honest. To be sure there are failings, just like the failings found in every profession, no exceptions.

It is too bad about education in Kansas and similar states, but voters are to blame. When a majority continue to vote for hateful, hostile politicians, you have no one else to blame. Politicians who despise pubic education will never have an epiphany and suddenly change their minds. No reasonable argument will turn them around. Liberals have been hesitant to call out conservatives because bad mouthing a self-professed good Christian conservative seems like an attack on religion. It is not, but conservatives like to play that card. Any criticism becomes an attack on religion. Now that we have seen the true colors of conservatives with their support of Trump, I hope liberals will finally find a voice to start calling out the extremists who wish to destroy education.

The rare note of appreciation from a student can lift a teacher's spirits but it can't make up for the 24/7/365 attacks. Eventually even the most confident and positive of people breaks under the weight of all of that negativity. You get tired of defending yourself and your profession.

Especially when you can simply switch to a different career that doesn't have that pressure and pays more to boot. Many are.

And many aren't even entering the profession. Math and Science majors aren't stupid. They're looking at their option and they can see they can make more money and have more opportunities for advancement than taking a thankless low paying teaching job. So much for hiring the brightest and best. When you're competing with the business world you are going to need to compete. That may mean top health care and a pension to make up for the lower pay. But it also better include respect and support. No amount of money makes up for constant bad mouthing and professional and personal attacks.

After 31 years In another profession, I am entering academia. I feel I have 25% of my full time working life to influence the profession I left to teach others. Our nurses are coming out of school lacking critical thinking skills and relying on technology ( does that person REALLY have a heart rate of 25 like the machine reads?? Really? Cause you better call a code if they are. Wish me luck.Im excited and ambitious and hope I can make a difference.

Palo Alto is having a hard time recruiting teachers and policemen because they simply can't afford to live there. $4,000 a month for an apartment, $6,000+ a month for a house. No one can afford that on a teachers or policemans salary. Not even if they're married and the spouse works.

Of course some Republicans will say you should have made better life choices. The thing is some people truly want to be educators, but what they get paid eventually makes a lot of them leave. The ones that don't leave sometimes eventually don't give a shit.

About Me

This blog is dedicated to finding the truth, exposing the lies, and holding our politicians and leaders accountable when they fall far short of the promises that they have made to both my fellow Alaskans and the American people.